number 34 • Winter 2018

Authors

Michael Lynch

articles

WHEN I was growing up, there was a saying, ‘Sixteen will get you 20,’” remembers Eloise Anderson, director of California’s Department of Social Services. “’Sixteen” is a girl’s age; “20” is the number of years an adult male would spend in prison if he had sex with her. For years, statutory-rape laws languished in disuse. But recent studies show that a significant proportion of teens are impregnated by adult men, prompting politicians to once again apply such laws, which remain on the books in all 50 states. At the federal level, last year’s welfare-reform law called on states and localities to “aggressively enforce statutory-rape laws.”

AS the debate over affirmative action heats up, a concerted effort will be made to convince women that they are victims of job discrimination. Currently, a constitutional initiative in California, headed for the November 1996 ballot, threatens to abolish public-sector preference programs, and, indeed, opponents of the initiative are appealing to women to oppose it. The National Organization for Women (NOW), for example, has made defeating the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI) its number one priority for 1996, and such formerly non-political groups as the YWCA have joined the charge to defeat it.